ike virgins who welcome happy lovers; to the
west, Mount Pentelicus, from whose heart the architectural glory of the
city has been carved, bids them think what patience will enable man's
genius to accomplish; and to the north, Hymettus, fragrant with the
breath of a thousand herbs and musical with the hum of bees, stoops with
gentle undulations to their feet. They live in the air; their temples
are open to the sunlight; their theatres are uncovered to the heavens;
and whithersoever they move, they are surrounded by what is fair, noble,
and inspiring. This free and happy life in the company of great
teachers becomes the stimulus to the keenest exercise of mind. They are
as eager to see things in a true light as they are quick to sympathize
with whatever is heroic or beautiful; and all their talk is of truth and
justice, the good, the fair, the excellent, of philosophy, religion,
poetry, and art, and of whatever else seems favorable to human life and
to the development of ideal manhood. Of the merely useful they have the
scorn of young and inexperienced minds; and Hippocrates proclaims
himself ready to give Protagoras, not only whatever he himself
possesses, but also the property of his friends, if he will but teach
him wisdom. Superior knowledge was to them of all things the most
admirable and the most to be desired. What noble thoughts have they not
concerning education? "An intelligent man," says Plato, "will prize
those studies which result in his soul getting soberness, righteousness,
and wisdom, and will less value the others." The culture of the mind is
made a kind of religion, in the spreading of which the personal
influence of the teacher is not less active than the truths he sets
forth. Bonds of affection bind the disciple to the master whose words
have for him the sacredness of wisdom and the charm of genius, power to
confirm the will, and warmth and color whereby the imagination is
raised.

This secret of making knowledge attractive, of clothing truth in chaste
and beautiful language, of associating it with whatever is fair and
noble in Nature, and of relating it to life and conduct, which is part
of the genius of Greece, still lives in her literature; and to read the
words of her poets, orators, and philosophers is to feel the presence of
a high and active spirit, is to breathe in an intellectual atmosphere of
light and liberty, is of itself enlargement and cultivation of mind.
Hence, in the realms of thought